


Long Gone

by Princess_Sarcastia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Discussions of redemption, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Visions, Gen, Mentioned Finn, Not Canon Compliant - Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Fix-It, Training Montage, but not between Rey and kylo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 16:55:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18898780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_Sarcastia/pseuds/Princess_Sarcastia
Summary: Kylo Ren wants to let the past die.  Luke Skywalker refuses to teach Rey.  Clearly, the Force has to take matters into its own hands.In which Rey receives the vision to end all visions and gets the teachers she needs.





	1. I only know one truth

**Author's Note:**

> This whole thing was originally inspired by this gifset (https://lilkisara.tumblr.com/post/155020719128), and my general sense of spite surrounding everything Kylo Ren thinks is a good idea. If you let the past die, history is doomed to repeat itself. 
> 
> I originally started writing this just after the very first Last Jedi trailer was released, and then finished it a few weeks ago, so some of the island descriptions are different from the movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additionally, this whole first chapter is an experiment in how a massive vision like this would function; I hope you do read it, but there's a lot of italic and bold formatting, and little original content beyond Rey's ruminating at the beginning. If that doesn't sound like you cup of tea, you can skip to the next chapter (with more original plot, etc.) with the knowledge that (spoilers) the Force shoved a thousand generation's worth of history into Rey's head, and the knowledge and emotions attached to that history get brought to the forefront of her mind by her interaction with people/things in her present connected to certain moments in the past. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Rey only gets five steps from Luke before going back and picking up the saber.  _Hers, but his before her, and his father’s before him_.

 

It calls to her: energy thrumming in tune with something inside her.  _Only what you take with you_.

 

She takes it with her.

 

Dark, damp air stirs around her, almost alive, entirely unfamiliar.  Blackness spreads out before her, covering cave walls that go farther back than she can see.  There’s supposed to be something to find in here, Rey knows.  What that is isn’t clear; but then, nothing about this island is.

 

The light fades out behind her.  Her steps aren’t echoing, aren’t muffled either.  It gets darker and darker as she moves farther and farther in.

 

Nothing comes out of it to greet her.  Nothing calls to her through the Force, except for the ever-present thrum of her saber.

 

Eventually she pulls it off her belt, runs her thumb over the trigger.  Any farther and she won’t be able to see without it.  Rey could turn back now, tell him there was nothing to see: another odd, useless task in a series of odd, useless tasks (another failed task, something in the back of her mind whispers, but she just doesn’t understand what he wants from her, what she’s supposed to do).

 

She ignites her saber. Presses on.

 

The blade hums, the sound of it as unfamiliar and alive as the air and darkness.  Luke’s trained her surprisingly little with her blade; always focuses on her mind.  What does she _see_ , when she reaches out? What _calls_ to her, through the Force?

 

Force.  He hasn’t even explained what the Force _is_ –

 

_That’s not how the Force works!_

 

Something flickers in front of her, something…echoes back to her.  Rey pushes the blade foreword, tries to see further– it almost sounded like…

 

_No, no! What do you **see**?_

Sighing, she closes her eyes, her saber still extended, and reaches out with the Force, with hernother _other_ and–

 

What is the Force?

 

_Luke.  Luke, and someone– someone smaller **judge me by my size, do you?** and older, but– bigger. “I can’t, it’s too big”.  Luke hates the swamp and he’s frustrated with Yoda and he wants to be with Leia and Han–_

Han?

 

_–and Yoda– Yoda, his name is Yoda, Master Yoda, Grandmaster Yoda, of the Jedi Order–_ The Jedi Order? _– is tired.  Weary. “Size matters not.  Look at me;” He is old, too old for this, the boy is too old to train.  Just like his **father** – his father before him– _the saber, his father, it was his and then it was Luke’s and then _–_

_Luke clutches at the bars; his arm burns and stops where it should go on. His hand and his last link to his father fall down into the depths of the city **you truly belong with us here among the clouds** and he looks back at Vader– _

_Darth Vader **you will never be as strong as Darth Vader** –_

_He told me you killed him, **he betrayed and murdered your father** he snarls, full of hate and suffering and pain.  But Vader’s hate is stronger, all-encompassing **I hate you** because this was–_

_No; I am your father–_

_This was his son, his son had been stolen from him by **more powerful than you could ever imagine** Kenobi, his old master **now I am the master he was a pupil of mine** , his enemy, dead at his hand too swiftly–_

_NO! it rings out across the landing bay, catches Vader’s attention, but then the Princess is pulling him into the Falcon **what a piece of junk you came here in that thing the garbage will do–**_

****

_–she puts a blanket over his shoulders, empathetic over the raging inside of her because–_

_NO! it rings out across the bridge and Vader is holding her back, the only thing keeping her from killing all of them, every last one because her planet is gone her father is dead her **mother** –_

**_I never knew my mother_ ** _**she was kind, but sad** because– because **no; there is another** because–_

_Are you an angel? The little slave boy **I’m a person and my name is Anakin** asks–_

**_It would destroy us_ ** _**this is the happiest moment of my life** **we’ll call her Leia** –_

_Luke, she says, gasping, Padmé is trying to stay here for them, for her children, Leia, breathless, **kind** but her husband, Ani, oh Ani **but sad** , his grip around her throat–_

_You turned her against me! Anakin rages and rages against them, clenching his fist **you have failed me for the last time** so tightly his muscles ache and the darkness sings._

_You have done that yourself, Obi-wan slips away from his robes, so ready to fight **strike me down** –_

_Anakin’s_ burning _, pain burning through his nerve endings, encasing his head, his legs, his arm, all that is left of him._

_You were the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force…not leave it in darkness **peace and security to my new empire–**_

_The blade slices through them so cleanly **you killed– younglings?** it’s like they’re not even there.  His troops march through the temple behind him, he knows, cleaning out the rest of the traitors–_

_In the name of the Galactic Senate of the Republic **I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi** you’re under arrest, Chancellor.  Master Windu stands with the Order by his side, confident in his abilities; they will bring peace and justice and restore balance to the Force once and for all._

_I_ am _the Senate. Palpatine tenses, he’s been waiting for this for so long, endless is the patience of the line of Darth Bane, but now it no longer serves a purpose._

_Not yet. Mace’s blade hums in tune with him, thrumming the same as something inside of him, just like the others’, just like…like Palpatine’s, as he drops them from his sleeves.  How could they not notice **shrouded by the dark side of the Force** through all this time, that Palpatine was the Sith?_

_So it’s treason, then–_

_He falls out of the window, lightning still racing through his body, catches a glimpse of Anakin assisting Palpatine, helping him up, before–_

_Darth Vader throws the Emperor down the reactor shaft, ignoring the lightning racing through his body; it’s nothing compared to burning.  No, he is more concerned with his son **tell your sister you were right** , with Luke–_

_Yoda taps his stick on the ground.  “And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is–_

_Luke’s X-Wing, rising effortlessly from the swamp–_

_Jedi, their eyes closed, themnotthem_ other _extended out, showing them visions **other places.  The future…the past.  I don’t know why I keep dreaming about her and the baby?–**_

****

_Three men, their hands outstretched towards a fourth.  And you will tell us n o w–_

_Life creates it **Ani has no father** , makes it grow._

_Its energy surrounds us and binds us **that lightsaber was Luke's. And his father's before him. And now, it calls to you**. _

_Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter **rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force**_ **Luke** _–_

Rey drops to her knees, heaving, gasping for air.  The saber _even the younglings_ goes slack in her grip. Somehow, she’s almost back to the entrance to the cave, light filtering in behind Luke.  He reaches out his hand, deactivates the blade so she can release it.

 

“What– what _was_ that?”

 

Luke steps forward and crouches next to her, his face sympathetic, wry.  “It seems like your visions were a little more literal than mine. When I did this–”

 

_advancing in the cave, swinging his saber up in front of him, how is Vader here, on Dagobah_ –

 

Now she’s leaning forward on her hands, still gasping.  The lightsaber isn’t even in her hand, how is she still getting visions?

 

His expression is more serious now.  More curious. “That’s strange.  The visions are still surfacing in your mind, almost like they’re triggered…” Luke trails off and slowly stands up.

 

Her breathing slows down as her mind takes time to process all of it.  Tears sting her eyes and she wipes at them sharply.  “So those are– visions.”  She looks up at Luke.

 

“Yes.”  He pauses for a moment.  “What did you see?”

 

“I don’t– I don’t know how to–” Rey makes a frustrated noise.  “I don’t know.  Everything. You.  General Organa.  The Death Star, the Jedi Order, Ben Kenobi, Grandmaster Yoda, Emperor Palpatine, your father– “

 

Luke makes a noise. “My father,” he says softly.

 

She sits back up, trying to calm her breathing even more.  “Anakin, that was his name, right?”

 

His expression is darker, now, and not just from the shadows of the cave.  _You will never be as strong as Darth Vader._

He shifts in the entrance, looks out towards the ocean.  Rey sits there, her mind still racing; it feels too tight, too large, like there’s more inside her head than there should be.  “Have–have you seen all of that before?  Is it all true?”

 

Luke half-turns to face her. “I only know one truth:

 

It’s time for the Jedi to end.”


	2. let the past die? I think not

Rey is used to being alone; she’d been alone all her life before BB-8 came to Jakku.  That doesn’t mean loneliness doesn’t ache inside of her, make her long for companionship, comradery, to be part of a larger whole. A family.

 

The only time it ever eased was when she had been with Finn–or Poe, in the brief time between Starkiller and here.  Finding Luke had given her hope she could ease it again, with someone else like her. Echoes make their way to her through hernother _other_ , telling her the feeling isn’t wrong, just misplaced. 

 

She knows Luke is at peace here; not happy, no, but the quiet solitude soothes his restless mind. Her presence does not.  It reminds him of _burning, the New Jedi temple is burning, **bodies scattered across the floors** – the clone troopers advance through the temple, slaughtering the sick and the weak and the young, the only ones who remain, while their commander marches to the tallest spire and finds_–

 

The memoryvision cuts across her mind, shattering what little peace she’d earned in trying to meditate.  It keeps happening: flashes of the past being drawn out of the deepest reaches of her memory, memory that isn’t hers yet _is_ , because everything is hers, now.

 

Sometimes it’s her own words, or Luke’s.  Her thoughts; his thoughts.  Once she touched the R2-D2’s dome and the resulting wash of memoryvision _lovelosspain_ is enough to bring her to her knees. Every time it happens, they settle into her mind, and it feels right, like fixing the wiring on her speeder; like pulling parts from the starship wreck in the desert.  Finding something worthy of keeping in the devastation of the past.

 

She just wishes she weren’t drowning in the emotions tied to them.

* * *

 

 Rey seethes and grows to hate Kylo Ren more every day she stays here.  For Finn, who still hasn’t woken up (she’ll know when he wakes up; and this certainty in herself shakes and amazes her), and for the damaged man who is supposed to be her teacher.

 

There are memoryvisions in her head of a boy, one who was born from pain and darkness and love and lived with his heart filled with the lattermost.  He loved his father despite all that he’d done; he loved his sister from the moment he met her; he loved the galaxy, he loved his students; he loved Ben, his nephew.  It was the last that had broken him, in a way that pulled at her mind until–

 

_the fumes from the magma river swirl thickly through the air, but this isn’t what he’s choking on.  Darkness lies burning on the shore, and his soul is tearing itself apart. You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you.  Even then, though, the Temple hung ruined in his mind, and so he turned away; he was not feeling merciful–_

Kylo Ren betrayed someone who loved him so deeply in pursuit of a false idol, of power, and once again the galaxy was thrown is darkness because of it.  Luke, the last Jedi in existence, allowed his grief to swallow him up and fled into exile like his masters before him.  He allowed his fear to smother him and refused to teach her any more.

 

Sometimes, she could do what she had done on Starkiller Base: close her eyes, allow the call of the Force to wind through her, and open them again armed with knowledge and skills she hadn’t had before. But it wasn’t enough.  She needed a teacher.  A real one, not the corruption Kylo Ren offered or the hesitant half-truths that were all Luke could give her.

 

The more frustrated she became, the more the center of the island called to her.  An ancient Jedi temple’s ruins lay at its core, uncorrupted by anything but time.  Still sacred and hallowed.

 

Luke turns away from her, speaking of his own fear and despair at her power.  It isn’t the first time, but for a brief moment Rey’s chest tightens and her fists clench and it’s hard to breathe.  This isn’t what she wanted. 

 

So, she closes her eyes for a moment, reaching out with the Force (one of the only things Luke was willing to teach her) for what she does want.  She isn’t exactly sure what that is, but–

 

The ruins call to her, waves of tranquility and history and power; _come, come and see; find what you seek._

Rey opens her eyes and starts towards them, leaving Luke standing in her wake.

 

* * *

 

Scavenging wreck after wreck in the desert left Rey with a keen sense of space.  The old Star Destroyers were huge, gaping maws under the hot sun, easy to get lost in if you couldn’t sense their borders, how big they were on the inside.  But the cavern she was in now…

 

Rey had watched this island appear in the viewport of the Falcon; she’s been training here for weeks. She should know this place by now, know its edges and size.  And yet it seems–impossible.  Too big for the rock that contains it.

 

Sunlight filters in from above, a hole she hasn’t found from the other side yet.  Looking around here makes shivers ripple through her shoulders, makes something inside of her _always been there then I was **there has been an awakening** awake _hum contentedly.

 

Strands of a massive stone carving stream from the center of the far wall of this place, like waves of solar energy from a sun.  Something about the pattern is captivating, hypnotic.  Tranquility in disorder, or– harmony.  _Harmony from chaos_.

 

There is no clear path to the stone plateau, so Rey makes her own.  Her fingers find holds in the rock, and where there are none the Force nudges her, _surrounds us_ guides her. Power leaks into her limbs, letting her push further than should be possible, with more strength and balance than she knows she has, to the next hold.

 

When she finally reaches it, the sunlight has changed.  Everything in the chamber glows with it, and her breathing echoes across and then back to her.

 

A collection of flimsiplast lies just off-center, bound together in a way that Rey knows is ancient. She crouches down next to it, her hand reaching out to brush against the symbol on the cover.  Golden, with lines so intrinsically familiar to her it aches, feels like the comradery and family she seeks. 

 

 _The Balance_ , the Force whispers to her with her own voice, and Rey closes her eyes.  Her legs settle comfortably underneath her of their own accord, until she’s kneeling in front of the symbol, her other hand resting on her thigh.

 

 _Breathe, Just…Breathe_. Luke’s voice, another memoryvision that fills her with regret because this beautifully kind man used to be a teacher, filled with patience and guidance the galaxy sorely needs, but now lacks.

 

She takes his advice, even if it wasn’t meant for her.  In, out. In…out…. i  n  . .   .

 

* * *

 

 Her eyes drift open, and she finds herself bathed in the light of a fire, instead of a sun.  Rey breathes, and feels hernother _other_ pulse through her veins in the place of her lifeblood, slowing any panic she might have felt.  A strange figure sits across from her.  Rey breathes and knows them.  Not their face or their name, but their _self._   Light personified.  Ferocious. Burning.  Loving.  Sorrowful. Powerful. 

 

Curiosity breaks through her calm where panic couldn’t.  “Are you a Jedi?”

 

The being smiles at her, compassion with a predator’s teeth.  “I am no Jedi, young one.”

 

Her words ring out like a canticle in the Force, and Rey waits for another vision of things long past to overtake her.  When nothing happens, her curiosity grows, swirling around with the peace the Force is providing her with, balanced.

 

“Then what are you?  A teacher?”  She looks more closely.  The woman’s montrals let her tower over Rey, even sitting as they are.  Her hands rest on her own thighs, mirroring Rey’s position exactly.

 

“Sometimes.  Sometimes not,” the woman says, and Rey feels exasperation mix with her curiosity.  She sees the other woman’s smile take on an edge of humor, and suddenly there is a vision in her mind, except– no.  Not a vision, shoved into her head by the Force, but memories shared with her, offered for her to take or leave.

 

The kindness of it makes her beam, and she takes it gladly; _Yoda is amused beside her, and she lets herself be amused, too, instead of embarrassed, and holds her lightsaber up to the younglings. **This weapon is your life** ; don’t lose it–_

_Rage, terrible and powerful **revenge is not the Jedi way** overtakes her.  Her ‘sabers lash out in a whirlwind of death, and bodies fall to the ground just moments after their heads–_

_She stands, darkness before her: I am no Jedi._

“Ahsoka,” Rey murmurs.  _Daughter_ , the Force murmurs back.

 

Ahsoka grins at her, age crinkling her eyes.  “Rey.”

 

They sit there for a moment, each studying the other closely.  Rey notices her lightsabers hanging from her belt, feeling them thrum in tune with the teacherwarriorwolf.  “Can you help me?” She asks.

 

Ahsoka shifts until her legs are crossed in front of her and rests her hands on her knees, and Rey finds herself mirroring her position now.  “Perhaps. That depends on what you want.”

 

The warm light from the fire flickers, pulsing at Rey and reflecting in her eyes.  “I need someone to show me my place, in all of this.” She gestures around them; not to the cavern, but to the Force.

 

Ahsoka exhales a laugh. “I know this isn’t the answer you’re looking for, but…” She angles her head to the side.  “That all depends on you.  Your place is your choice, just as everyone else’s place is theirs.”

 

Unbidden, Kylo Ren appears in her mind’s eye, running through Han with his lightsaber.  Rey’s hands tighten into fists and now fury joins the other emotions, altering the harmony within her without erasing it.  Ahsoka’s face smooths out, as if she sees what Rey is remembering.  She probably is, now that Rey thinks about it. 

 

No elaboration comes, pulling more exasperation out of her, but instead of voicing it Rey seeks the answer on her own.

 

First, she reaches out into the Force, but its answer is the same as Ahsoka’s: blank, uncompromising potential.  She pushes harder, looking for threads of the future, threads she has seen Jedi manipulate in her visions, but the Force pushes back, gently.  _No_ , it whispers.  _You.  You decide_.

 

Sighing, she searches the memories inside her, the ones that are hers, but not hers, and seeks the answer. Nothing comes forth, though; just pain, and suffering, and hope.  Faintly, she rememberseesknows the weight of destiny on the shoulders of a little boy, placed there by those who should have known better, driving him down a path he did not choose himself.

 

Rey takes the hint and releases the memoryvisions for a moment, taking a look around the chamber once more.  She recalls the feelings it evoked in her, that it still draws out of her.  A sense of purpose, of belonging. 

 

This place is ancient _for a thousand generations_.  So many had come here before her, leaving their own marks on the harmony within the temple, not unlike the harmony of emotions inside of her.  So many Jedi.

 

Does she want to be a Jedi? Rey tilts her head to the side, letting her eyes slide out of focus.  Maybe.  Purpose– to guard the galaxy, promote peace and harmony, even teach others like her when the time came.  Belonging– the memories in her head that weren’t things that she’d lived, but from all those who had come before her, who had lived and bled and learned and died. She could belong with them.

 

But then– Finn. Poe.  The General.  All those things could be found outside of the Jedi.  She could have purpose and belonging with her friends; her _family_ , really.  The Force could be found outside the Jedi as well; Maz knew it, and Luke…and this woman before her.  Not a Jedi.  Fighting like one, meditating like one, but unbound by the shackles of millennia of tradition.

 

Rey–beyond all the other things–is curious.  She wants to know.  Kylo Ren shoved himself in her face, you need a teacher, and so she closed her eyes and opened herself up to the Force and called, _teach me_.   And it did. It taught her; she learned.

Could she– could that be her purpose? To learn the ways of the Force?

 

 _And do what with them_ , something whispers.  _Learning is nothing without the will to use it; you will not be content to sit in this temple and learn forever, child_.

 

The resistance base flashes through her mind: intent and will personified.  All of them, working together to defeat the First Order.  But that’s not…

 

She takes in another deep breath, closing her eyes as she does.  Purpose can’t simply be opposition.  A lifetime waiting amidst the burning hot sands of Jakku gave her experience with people who were defined by their hate of the planet, the people, themselves; those were the ones who didn’t last long.  You need more than hate if you want to survive.

 

Luke, broken; the galaxy, shattered without a government, without hope; the Force, so long asleep there was no one left to wield it.  _the balance_ , her own voice tells her again, more intently. What balance, she thinks to herself, and it all _shifts_ and suddenly the universe is screaming; or, suddenly she can hear it.

 

 _Light_ Leia _help me Obi-wan Kenobi_ and Poe and Finn, burning bright.

 

 _Darkness_ Kylo Ren and his twisted _seduced by the dark side of the Force_ obsession with the past. With his master.

 

“ _The balance_ ,” Rey says, out loud, and words come full circle. “I want to fix it.”

 

Ahsoka leans forward, montrals dangerously close to the flames between them.  “Are you certain?”

 

“Yes.” Rey can _feel_ it, now: the galaxy, the Force, is out of balance, and screaming with the pain of it.  “I want to restore balance to the Force.”

 

Daughterteacherwolflight tilts her head back for a moment and laughs. “Well, then.”  _The wheel turns_ , she doesn’t say, but Rey can hear it all the same.


	3. You Need a Teacher

When Rey opens her eyes again, she’s alone, but the warmth of the past surrounds her, keeping out the wretched chill covering the entire island.  Cold isn’t a new feeling for her, but the damp is, and she’s not sure if she likes it yet.

 

Going back across the cavern is even easier.  Her limbs remember where to go without direction.  She lets movement fill her mind until it drives her thoughts from her head and enjoys a moment of peace.

 

Night has already fallen when Rey makes it out and winding her way down to Luke’s hut takes less time than she would like.  All of her previous sorrow and discontent is waiting there for her, but she recalls the feeling of sitting before Ahsoka, balanced, and pushes foreword. 

 

Luke has a fire going, with fish roasting on a spit over it.  Fish, Rey muses.  Another new thing.  She definitely likes these, though.  Variety in food is a novelty she isn’t sure will ever wear off, even though Luke assured her the handful of plants and animals here are nothing.

 

(Sometimes…sometimes Luke forgets to be on edge around her.  Sometimes he smiles, and it pulls at lines on his face like it used to be all he ever did.  Sometimes he is effortlessly kind and standing next to him feels like orbiting a star.)

 

“Did you find what you were looking for?”  He asks quietly.

 

Rey settles no closer to him than she usually does but meets his eyes searchingly.  “Yes,” she says, and he takes a deep breath. 

 

“I’m sorry.”  Sorry for what, she almost asks, but she already knows the answer.  Kylo Ren, Han, the state of the galaxy and the force; not being able to give her what she’s looking for.

 

They fall into silence. Rey finally accepts that, until he heals (unless, unless he heals), he’ll never be able to teach her like she wants.  _Padawan_ , some memoryvision whispers in her ear, but she blinks the thought away.  No.

 

With Ahsoka’s promise to help her in her mind, though, it is the most companionable silence they’ve ever had.  He hands her a fish, and they eat while the darkness sings with life around them.

 

* * *

 

Not once does she manage to wake before Luke, despite years and years of rising with the sun on Jakku to work in the cool hours just after dawn.  She hasn’t decided yet if he’s doing this on purpose, just to annoy her.   

 

Either way, today she wakes early and climbs to a small plateau halfway up the mountain to watch the sun rise.  By this time in the desert, she’d be buried in the wreck of a Star Destroyer, unable to watch the sky turn pink.  While she’s here, while she has time, she’s going to watch every single one of them, from every angle on the island.

 

“A wonderful view, it is.” Suddenly, someone is sitting next to her.  Ancient, rooted, stable, impish.  Light, like Ahsoka, but not warm.  They feel almost…scorching.

 

She agrees quietly but says nothing.  The pair of them watch as the sun’s rays reflect off of the water, now sparkling like a mirage.  As the line of light creeps closer and closer along the rock, she suddenly knows he’ll be gone as soon as it touches them.

 

Rey keeps the question in for as long as she can, but it suddenly bursts out.  “Are you here to teach me?”

 

He chuckles madly. “Teach you? No, no.  A teacher I am no longer. Old, yes, but wise? Hmm.” 

 

Light slips nearer. “Then why are you here?”

 

“Always enjoyed sunsets I have.  When I could.”  Loneliness and grief surge through her; swamps and a ruined temple run roughly through her mind.  “Tired, I am, and old.  Yes, too old to train you.

 

But watch this sunrise with you, I will.”

 

Calm wraps around her, as warm as the sunlight that’s almost close enough to taste.  One of the porgs flutters down curiously and nuzzles her hand when she stretches it out. 

 

In, out.  In, out.  In…out….

 

Rey breathes with the motion of the sun and soon enough, Yoda is gone, but she thinks she understands.

 

* * *

 

 Another week passes, and she never sees Yoda again, but it seems like dozens of other warriors have taken his place.  They, at least, can teach her.

 

The waters lapping at the rocks ringing the island remain a mystery to her until a smiling man, a Jedi, coaxes her chest deep in the water.  Feel the push and pull of the tide, he says, like your breath, like the Force.  Feel the creatures living in it: the fish you eat, the plants humming faintly on the ocean floor, the larger predators with their sharp and focused minds. 

 

Know your fear and you may find you no longer fear it, he says, and slips under the water.  After a moment’s hesitation, she follows.  It feels odd, and Rey has no idea how to move her limbs. 

 

The Jedi flows past her with his head tails moving strangely around him.  Rey ruthlessly copies his movements until she gains some momentum. He laughs at her determinedness in a good-natured way, his voice carrying through the water, and beckons her further from the island.

 

She follows unreservedly now and continues to watch how his arms and legs move.  Without webbing between her fingers, or gills, she will never move that fast.  Another few seconds and she sees his head tails feel the movement of the currents around him; they drag with the water and he shifts direction ever so slightly.

 

Ocean life is dazzling and strange.  It’s as if there’s a whole other world on this planet, even beyond the islands and surface waves.  Colorful, different, but

not––scary.  

 

One of the fish she likes to eat swims cautiously near her and she stills.  It freezes in response, sensing her muscles tensing somehow. 

 

“Relax, and he will come to you!” The Jedi calls from the reef where he’s stopped.  Looking at him makes her uneasy for a second: it’s disconcerting to watch someone go so long without breathing.  Rey wonders if it’s because he’s aquatic, or because he’s not really here at all.

 

Her chest tightens and she knows she doesn’t have much longer, especially if she uses up her oxygen trying to keep still.  Tension leaks from her limbs as she lets the water push and pull her.

 

The fish finally begins moving again, darting a path like lightning through the water towards her. She stretches out a hand and it rushes into her, it’s strange mouth trying to latch onto her fingers. 

 

I won’t eat you, she thinks, because that isn’t the point of this, but I won’t let you eat me either.

 

Pushing towards the surface and breaking into the fresh air feels wonderful.  Stretching hernother _other_ out lets her know she’s alone now. Rey lets her body move with the waves, and the incomprehensible amount of water surrounding her is no longer worrisome, because she knows it.

* * *

 

Luke’s ship rests at the bottom of a cove barely big enough to contain it.  Algae covers it like the rust that hasn’t touched it, even though after all these years it should have.  Rey suspects that, if it was pulled out of the water, the x-wing would run perfectly.

 

* * *

 

After another week, Rey starts reaching out to Finn every morning with hernother _other,_ tentatively grasping at that faint thrumming of _not yet, not yet_ in the back of her mind. 

 

Some days, the best days, something that is Finn, FinnnotFinn _other_ , will stir.  Reach back, asleep but aware.  Whenever that happens, she spends the rest of the day with a smile on her face.  This, her connection with him; this is what she’s been waiting for her whole life. 

 

Family. 

 

(She looks at Luke, sometimes, on those days, and wonders whether he still get that feeling from Leia).

* * *

 

Old Ben comes to her one day as she sits on the highest point of the island, watching the porgs waddle and flap their way across the grassy rock.

 

“Delightful creatures, aren’t they?” He says, groaning slightly as he lowers himself next to her. She raises an eyebrow and he scoffs. “What, you think the aches of age you earned in life just disappear when you die? No, the Force is not quite so kind.”

 

A flash of memoryvision pushes to the front of her mind, for the first time since she entered the temple. Visions of the past on Endor; a young man standing with old men.

 

Old Ben grumbles. “Yes, well; he always was the Force’s favorite.  The rest of us aren’t that lucky.”

 

He folds his legs and she mirrors him.  They reach out together, and Rey hangs back slightly to feel what he’s doing.  Himnothim _other_ tosses a stone into the energy around them.  No, not a stone; a lure.

 

The porgs’ movements slow and they turn towards the pair of them, sitting there.  Old Ben nudges her side and she plucks the lure from his grip, balancing it out again in front of her.  As if in a trance, the animals move closer, drawn to her by something they can’t even comprehend, or hope to fight.

 

Kylo Ren and the chair with the bindings flash through her mind and she stops abruptly.  All the creatures around her start and begin to flap their way down the mountain, agitated.  Rey lets out a slow breath and closes her eyes.  “I don’t think I like that.”

 

“I rather think I liked it too much, while I lived.  Anakin never–” He cuts himself off, staring into the distance.  “Let’s just say, there are some lines the Jedi crossed far too often, with little thought to the consequences.”

 

He turns to face her and again she mirrors him.  “Rey, it is not just the dark side that leads to unnatural abilities.  Take care you don’t abuse them, or you may find yourself going down a much darker path.”

 

Kylo’s scorching presence ripping at her mind _you want to go home and rethink your life **and you will tell us n o w–**_

****

Air fills her lungs more quickly, and her chest feels a little tighter.  For a moment, warmth settles on her shoulder; then it is gone, and she is alone.

* * *

 

One day, Chewie makes the hike up from the Falcon with his bowcaster and the blaster Han had given her at Maz’s.  She didn’t see his reunion with Luke when they first arrived.  The tension between the pair of them nudged her to explore for a little while, and when she returned, Chewie was back on the ship.

 

Here, today, he nods at Luke and then drags her away from the fire and back down the mountain. When they reach the longest stretch of beach on the island, Rey finds the targets he’s set up, varying ranges and angles away from the spot he’s marked very clearly in the sand.

 

She smiles brightly and hugs him, long enough for him to huff exasperatedly, <Yes, alright, cub, now let’s practice your aim.  Han used to say ancient religions were no match for a good blaster at your side.>

 

Chewbacca adjusts her stance for recoil and lets her at it.  Most of her shots with the smaller blaster are accurate, but then he hands her his.  The kick pushes her back half a meter and the shot goes wild.

 

<You have the muscle for it, you’re just tensing too much.  Work with the energy, not against it.>

 

Rey closes her eyes for a moment and feels the ghosts of waves pushing and pulling at her skin. Her next shot hits dead center, and she uses the recoil to swing to the next target.

 

Once he’s sure she has it, they spend the rest of the morning making increasingly ridiculous shots until R2 rolls over with ration packs, saying he knew meat-bags needed to charge more often than he did.

 

The three of them sat in the shadow of the Falcon contentedly for lunch, staying just out of reach of the midday sun.


	4. the truth that is your family

A boy appears next to her while she’s eating with Luke in front of the fire.  Rey smiles at him and he grins back, gesturing for her to finish her fish.  After a few moments, she decides he’s really about her age, although she’s not sure how old that is exactly.

 

Luke glances up for a moment, then looks back down at his dinner.  She thinks he can see them, the memories of people who come to teach her things. But he never asks about them or speaks to them.  And they never try to talk to him, either.

 

When there’s nothing left but bones, she tosses all of it onto the fire and stands.  Together, she and the boy make their way towards the far side of the island. 

 

The boy runs his hand through his hair.  “Can you feel where we’re going yet?”

 

Rey blinks and reaches out, calming her mind so the world outside is louder than the universe within her. “There’s something…dark.” She frowns. “It feels like it’s calling to me.”

 

“Good!  Going into places like that uninvited can hurt, sometimes.”

 

“Why would we go toward the darkness?”

 

He shrugs, but his eyes are sure.  Rather than push for more answers, Rey resolves to wait until they get where they’re going.

 

Rey stops at the edge of this shelf of rock.  The sun has already dipped well below the horizon, but the sky is still lighter than night.  Wave after wave crashes beneath her feet, and underneath the brine of the ocean there’s a faint hint of something precious in the air: rain. 

 

Even here, in a place so opposite Jakku, Rey knows how to read the environment around her.  Though at this point, she doesn’t know if she’s learned this world on her own, or if it’s from a memoryvision lodged far into her mind.

 

Shaking her head, she hops down next to the gaping maw in the ground.  Seaweed lines the hole, descending into darkness, and something about it crawls over her skin, making her shiver with unease. 

 

“Well?” The boy says and disappears.  Rey slowly lets out a breath.  Her hands are sure, though, when she hooks her grapple in a niche and rappels down into the darkness.

 

It feels like a gravity well, pulling her down, down, down.   Until her feet touch stone.

 

“You know, places like these always offer you something.  Knowledge, power; whatever it is, you’ll want it desperately.”  The boy stands there, looking at her.  “What is this place offering you?”

 

Rey breathes in sharply. There’s a wall, on the far side of the cavern; it looks like a mirror. 

 

Before she can think about it, she’s standing in front of it, reaching her hand towards her reflection. 

 

Faces are interesting. On the rare, rare occasions when families would wander through her outpost on Jakku, they always—children get things from their parents.  Noses, or ears, or—or smiles. 

 

Sometimes Rey would stare at herself in her mirror and guess: mother or father?  Are those her mother’s eyes? Her father’s chin?  Will one of their faces scrunch at the nose, too?

 

It wasn’t a very fun game. Because deep down, she realizes, I knew I was never going to find out for sure. Tears prick her eyes, so she stretches out her expression until they stop.  Never waste water on grief. 

 

Why is she thinking about this? She hasn’t played this game in years.

 

After a few moments, the…ice? Glass? Stretches out.  Again and again and again, until Rey is looking at herself a thousand times over. Each iteration has to be a reflection, they must be, but it seems so…like she can feel them.

 

So she raises her hand and snaps.  Counts the echoes.  An old trick, one the oldest scavenger on Jakku used to show the younglings. Count the echoes, she said, and feel how big the space is.

 

Except they don’t stop, they keep going and going and suddenly she is them, snapping over and over and over and over and—

 

Rey gasps, pulling herself out of it.  A trap. Suddenly her breath freezes in her chest and the world around her is cold.  Hesitantly, she reaches out with hernother _other_ to feel what it is.  Something pulls at her mind, _wait_ , but she doesn’t listen—

 

Jagged pieces of the Force dig into her mind and she cries out. What could _Leia freezes in the entrance to the hanger. **I feel…cold**. A Zabrak with burning eyes fades in and out of her mind _oh.  Right. The darkness.  Everyone who’s taught her, they were all warm, burning, scorching.  And the darkness is cold. Rey pulls back into her own skin, away from the pain in the cavern.

 

Her reflection is back to normal.  Just her, just Rey.  _No one_ , something insidious whispers in the back of her mind.  _No one.  Nothing_. 

 

But I am, Rey thinks quietly.  I am someone. 

 

_You are nothing! You come from nothing!_

Come from? No, I must come from something.  I have—I have parents. 

 

 _The little girl screams and reaches for the ship leaving orbit. She strains against the hand holding her back, digging her heels into the sand and pulling, but it’s no use_ “Stop it,” Rey says.  “Stop it now.”

 

_Do you want to see them?_

I—

 

_Oh, but it’s all you wanted for so long.  “They’ll come back for me!”_

Rey stares at her reflection as two figures walk up behind her.  She resists the urge to turn around because they aren’t real, because if she takes her eyes off of them they might—

 

Her head twitches to the side, biting the thought off before it finishes. No.  She closes her eyes.  There’s no substance to them, anyway: indistinct profiles of people who…who never came back.

 

_Really? You aren’t curious? Your own family, and you won’t even look at them.  So ready to abandon them._

Now it sounds disgusted, but Rey shakes her head again.  No. Those things, whatever they are, they aren’t my family.

 

 _How sad.  So you have no one at all, then.  You really_ are _nothing_.

 

I have—I have someone. Finn, he—

 

 _The stormtrooper?  The first order soldier who lied to you?  That’s the best you can do_?

 

Suddenly Rey feels warm again; bright fury ignites somewhere in her chest.  “He is not a stormtrooper!  And he came back for me, like my family was supposed to!”  Like those shadow-people didn’t, she realizes, and now her path is clear.

 

Her eyes fly open. The mirror-ice-glass cracks when she presses on it with hernother _other_. Everything falls silent; blissfully, incredibly silent.  No one whispers in her mind.

 

“Wow.  Better than I did, the first time it offered me something.” The boy is back, but he seems…older. Not in his face, just his eyes.

 

“What was that?”

 

“My master called it the dark side, but there are other names.  Other forms.”

 

Rey remembers in a flash what Maz told her, the day they met.  The Sith.  The Empire. The First Order.  All steeped in darkness.  She forces the air in and out of her lungs, refusing to let it shake. Kylo Ren.  He was the darkness, too.

 

He watches her for a moment, and she stares back, breathing carefully.  Trembling starts in her legs, like she’s spent the whole day free-climbing. Before it can work its way any further, she sits down, and feels her arms shake, too, when she puts her weight on them. 

 

“So, tell me about this Finn guy.”  He settles down next to her, looking unfairly comfortable with his legs crossed.

 

His words catch in her mind before she can process them.  “I—Finn?”

 

“Yeah, Finn.”  He nods encouragingly.

 

Rey blinks, and lets her weight sink into the rock beneath her.   “He’s my…friend.”  And he is, he is her friend, but that doesn’t sound right in her head. 

 

“Really?  You don’t sound sure.”

 

“He is!  He came back for me.  No one’s ever done that before.”  Years of waiting in the desert for people who were never going to come back; but she can’t regret them, because Finn found her there, and—“Oh.”

 

Like all of the things she kept bottled up inside her, waiting to give to her family, she wants to give to Finn now.  “He came back for me,” she breathes again, and her face lights up.

 

The boy laughs.  “It took me awhile to realize I’d found my family again, too.  You get so used to being alone, waiting for something, that sometimes you lose sight of what’s right in front of you.”

 

Rey tilts her head to the side, still smiling.  “What was your family like?”

 

“Amazing!  The smartest people I’ve ever met, and the bravest. And they always came back for me, too.”

* * *

 

 

Rey _reaches_ toward Finn like she does every morning, except today he feels more awake than he did yesterday and hernother _other_ dances through the Force, bright and happy.

 

Even Luke notices, when they meet for breakfast.  “You seem happier.”  Just an observation, not a question, but she wants to share anyway.

 

“I think Finn is going to wake up soon!  I can feel it.” Rey smiles at him when he seems genuinely excited for her.  Then another thought strikes her and it slides from her face.  “But that means I’ll have to leave.”

 

Luke gives her a knowing look.  “You were never going to stay here forever, Rey.”

 

“What, and you are?” She laughs a little, but it’s angry instead of nice.  “You really aren’t going to come back.”

 

“No.”

 

“Not even for General Organa?” His eyes harden, and she tenses because he doesn’t look that way very often.  “Even if you don’t want to help the Resistance, I think she—misses you.”

 

“I can’t go back.  Not even for Leia,” he says softly.

 

“Why?”  He doesn’t answer, so she presses.  “She’s your family!  You don’t abandon your family.”

 

“Know that from experience, do you?” He says cuttingly, and Rey draws back, her shoulders hunching forward slightly.  They’re both silent for a moment, before,

 

“Sorry.  That was out of line,”

 

and “Yes.”

 

Equally quiet answers, but this time Luke draws back.  “I do know from experience.  Family always comes back, even when they shouldn’t.”  Something tugs at the back of her mind, so she does what she hasn’t before: she _reaches_ for Luke, offering him a memory the Force had given her.

 

“Rey, I don’t—” _I’ve got to help them!  Han and Leia will die if I don’t.  I can help them!_   His own voice echoes through the Force around them and he sighs.  Slowly, he rests his head in his hands.

 

He doesn’t say anything else, so she offers him another memory, _I have to help her!_ His father sounds so young, as young as she is, and Luke shifts, but doesn’t move again.

 

Suddenly she is—she is incandescently furious.  How dare he, when she longed for what he has for so long.  How dare he throw that away, and for what!  Grief?

 

“Why?” It bursts out of her again, and she’s on her feet, towering over him.  She wants him to stand up, to defend himself so she can tear him to pieces because this _isn’t okay_.   He senses her feelings and his head whips up, a warning look in his eyes.

 

“I left because I had to.” The words are bitten off, like he can’t believe he’s saying this, but he can’t stop.  “It was my fault!”

 

“What?” She throws her hands up.  “What was your fault?”

 

“Kylo Ren!”  He’s up and in her face before she can blink, and she startles backwards.  Then his words register and she inhales sharply.

 

“I created Kylo Ren,” he says, his eyes burning with a mix of fear and self-hatred.  “I saw what he would become, and I—I couldn’t stop it. Nothing, none of my teachings, could erase the darkness inside him, and by the time I realized I couldn’t save him it was too late.  The New Temple was burnt, and he,” Luke’s voice breaks.  “And he killed all of them,” he says roughly.  “He.  My nephew.”  His face is wet, and Rey is frozen, staring at him.

 

“Leia sent him to me to protect him, to train him.  She and Han trusted me with their son!  And I failed. I failed them, just like I failed the rest of the galaxy.”  He turns away from her, wiping at his cheeks.  “It’s better this way.  Here, I can’t do any more damage.”

* * *

 

That night, she dreams of a boy living in a desert.  When she wakes—half a galaxy away, Finn wakes with her.

 

* * *

 

When she says it’s time to leave, all Chewie does is clap her on the back.  R2 says it’s about damn time, and together the pair of them head back into the Falcon to run final flight checks.

 

Rey stands with her hands hanging loosely at her sides.  She knows it’s time, but something…there’s something missing, a loose end, something unfinished. 

 

Luke.  She can’t go without trying one last time.  For Leia’s sake, if not the galaxy’s.

 

Her feet take her to that small cove she found in the first few days here.  _Almost_ , the Force whispers, so she settles down at the cliff’s edge, closes her eyes, and waits.

 

Time slips by like sand through her fingers, and a great peace fills her.  Light and darkness, life and death, future and past, all ebb and flow around her in the Force, and for a moment it feels as though the very universe turns around this one point.  

 

Footsteps come to a stop beside her.  There’s a different kind of sadness surrounding Luke today. Fresh, for their parting, but a familiar self-deprecation tinges it.  _Why couldn’t I do more_ permeates the Force around him, just as it always does. 

 

Rey pushes to her feet and a thousand generations rise with her, looking at Luke with oldyoung eyes. 

 

“The galaxy needs you,” Rey says.  “The resistance needs you.  Leia needs you.  You’ve done no one any good hiding out here, punishing yourself for someone else’s choices.”

 

Luke says nothing, so she sighs and lets her eyes fall closed.  Rey reaches out with hernother _other_ all the way to the very bottom of the cove they stand above and wraps around a relic from another era.  Poe, she thinks, would love to see this.

 

Her eyes remain closed as she slowly raises Luke’s x-wing from the bottom of the ocean, water sluicing off of it, and she feels his visceral shock and nostalgia as he turns to watch.

 

She breathes in and it rises, and rises, and rises, until it hovers above their heads.  She breathes out and it turns in the air and then settles to the ground next to them.

 

Great clumps of seaweed slide off and splat against the grass and dirt beneath.  Rey opens her eyes to stare Luke down, a final gauntlet thrown between them.  He looks at her with something like disbelief, and a memoryvision bounces back and forth between them.

 

  _I can’t.  It’s too big.  Size matter not._

 

“There’s nothing here for you, Luke.  There never was.”   She reaches into her pocket and pulls a cloaked binary beacon out of her pocket.  Leia gave it to her before she left, but she doesn’t need it anymore. 

 

Rey tosses it at Luke, and his hand flies up automatically, keeping it from hitting his face.  The moment he realizes what she’s giving him is obvious on his face, and she almost smiles.  “Come and find us when you’re ready.”

 

A hand comes down on her shoulder, firm and amused.  _I’ll take it from here_ , the boy from the desert says in her mind, and the Force shivers between father and son, like gravity binding two blinding stars together. 

 

The last thing tying her here dissipates, and so she turns away from Luke and starts down the mountain. Toward the Falcon, toward Finn, toward purpose and balance and family. 

 

* * *

 

 (Luke turns toward his father in disbelief.  “Really? Now you show up?  After all the times I’ve called you, searched for you, you just come running when this girl asks.”

 

Anakin crosses his arms and settles back into his weight; somewhere behindinsidehereaway, Ahsoka snickers, because that’s a lecture pose if she’s ever seen one.

 

“You’ve never needed me before now.”

 

Luke’s face darkens for a moment.  “That’s not true.  That’s not true, and you know it!  Where were you when I was starting the Temple, when I was figuring out how to teach my students, when Ben—” his voice cuts off roughly.

 

“I was always a terrible teacher.  A terrible student, too.  Ben made his own choices, just like you.  Just like I did.”  Anakin pauses.  “Luke, you were—when I found out about you, I…” he trails off.  No. 

 

He starts again. “Luke, I loved you and your sister before you were even born.  When your mother told me about you—it was the happiest moment of my life.   Not that that’s saying much,” he adds wryly. 

 

“And I know you loved me, despite the man I had become when we met.  And I know that, all these years,” he unwinds and steps closer to Luke, “you thought that it was our connection that saved me.  That when you offered me redemption, I took it because of who we were to each other, because I loved you and I didn’t want you to die.

 

“That’s all true.  But I loved Padmé, too.  I loved Obi-Wan.  And they both loved me, _so_ _much_.  And when they extended their hands to me, I rejected them.  I murdered them both.  That was my choice then, just like it was my choice to die on the Death Star.”

 

Luke turns away, so he gets even closer and reaches out, gripping his shoulder and the back of his neck, forcing their gazes to meet.  “Redemption is not a tool, or a—a weapon for the light to wield, Luke.  It’s not something that can be forced onto people.  You can’t just make someone be good through force of will, or hope, or love. They have to decide to start down that path themselves.”

 

Tears slide down his son’s face.  He gently presses their foreheads together and says: “You did everything you could, Luke. You extended your hand to your nephew, but it was his job to take it.  That was his failure, not yours.  His choice.”

 

They stand together, quietly, until Luke gathers himself again.  Anakin steps back, disentangling them, and ignoring the ache he feels when Luke’s hands twitch after him.

 

“And now, Rey is reaching out to you.  It’s your choice whether or not you take her hand.”  He smiles, and fades behindinsidehereaway into the Force.

 

Luke looks to where his father disappeared for some time, then sits and settles into the grass, letting his hands rest on his knees.  “My choice, huh.” 

 

He doesn’t know how long he stays there, staring at his old x-wing, before he sighs.

 

Possibility slowly whirrs to life in the Force around him, threads of new futures starting to weave once again, and Luke sighs again.

 

He closes his eyes for a long moment; squeezes the beacon in his fist; rises)


End file.
